Chapter 100 — The Talisman Painter Who Guards the Village

First Ink Stroke, Again

That morning, the dew had not yet completely dissipated from the old thatched roof of the paper factory, now preserved intact by the villagers as a small memorial. Diệp Sương sat cross-legged on the porch, one hand holding the old, worn inkstone—the same one Mr. Tám Mực had given her years ago—and the other holding a brush out in front of Choi, who stood behind the pillar exactly like another child who had stood in the same position many years earlier.

The morning dew still lingered on the banana leaves behind the garden, the water drops glistening like small pearls in the early sunlight. The smells of freshly ground ink, dried bark paper, and faint kitchen ash from next door blended into a familiar scent that Diệp Sương had never stopped remembering, even after many years away.

"Come here," she said, her voice gentle but unable to hide an indescribable nervousness. "I've been watching you stand there all morning. Are your legs tired yet?"

*

Choi stepped out gingerly, his two tiny hands clutching the hem of his shirt, his eyes still fixed on the brush in Diệp Sương's hand. He was seven years old, his hair neatly cut short and his cheeks rosier than on the day she had first met him, when he had sat crouched in the corner of the room refusing to say a word.

Diệp Sương looked at him, briefly remembering herself at five or six years old, standing behind the same wooden pillar, her cheeks stained with a streak of unwashed ash and her heart pounding at the trembling brush in the hand of a kind old paper maker.

"I'm not stalking," he mumbled, the answer of a child trying to hide his curiosity. "I just stood there watching."

"What are you looking at so intently, huh?" Diệp Sương burst out laughing, a warm laugh that made Choi's whole face light up. "I've been grinding ink since I was younger than you are now. I've never seen a child stand and look for so long." She held the pen toward him. "Try it."

*

Choi hesitated for a moment, then timidly reached out to pick up the pen, his tiny fingers clumsily hugging the barrel of the pen like he was hugging a precious, fragile object.

"Don't hold it so tightly," Diệp Sương said, gently adjusting his grip, three fingers cupped in the exact position Mr. Tám Mực had used to adjust hers years ago. "The pen is not meant to be held tightly like a pickaxe handle. If you hold it too tightly, the lines will be stiff, your hands will get tired, and the drawing will die. You have to hold the pen like a small bird in the palm of your hand—firm enough so it won't fly away, but loose enough so it can still breathe." Sitting not far away, Vân Nhi, now a few years older than Choi, silently observed the two, her eyes full of curiosity and admiration for the mother she had never seen teach drawing to anyone other than herself before.

*

Choi imitated, his little fingers twirling around before finding the right holding position. The pen trembled in his hand, the tip of the feather gently touched the inkstone, pulling up a drop of shiny black ink, just like the moment Diệp Sương had experienced on this very porch, more than twenty years ago.

"Now draw," Diệp Sương said, her quiet voice carrying a stream of memories swirling in her heart. "Draw what you see in your head."

*

Choi looked down at the flattened piece of tree bark placed before him like a small board. Without thinking much, he brought the pen down and drew a soft curve from left to right, then a horizontal line through the middle, followed by two small symmetrical dots on either side like half-closed eyes. It was not perfect, a little shakier than what Diệp Sương had drawn at the age of six, but precise enough to make her heart ache.

Diệp Sương watched silently for a long time, unable to say anything, only the sound of the three people's breathing mixed with the sound of the morning wind blowing through the old paper factory door.

*

"Do you know what this is?" she finally asked, her voice strangely serious as an unnamed wave of emotion rose in her heart.

Choi shook his head.

"This is called An Mien talisman," Diệp Sương said, reaching out to gently touch the piece of tree bark, as if afraid of smudging the still wet ink, exactly the same gesture that Mr. Tám Mực used to do many years ago. "A charm for peaceful sleep. Not a big charm, just enough to coax a child to sleep well, to keep a few mosquitoes away from the mosquito net. But this is the first charm I ever learned to draw, right where you are sitting, from the kindest teacher I've ever known."

*

"Where is that teacher now?" Choi asked, looking up at her with clear eyes.

"He has gone away," Diệp Sương replied, her voice gentle but not sad. "But what he taught me is still here, in my hands—and now in yours too." She patted the child's head and smiled. "That's how the best things are preserved—not by holding on to them, but by passing them on."

*

Vân Nhi walked closer, sat down next to Choi, and looked curiously at the drawing on the piece of tree bark. "I also want to learn to draw from the beginning like that," she said. "Mom, can you teach Choi and me at the same time?"

Diệp Sương looked at the two children, and a feeling of complete warmth rose in her heart, unlike anything she had felt throughout her long journey—not the joy of victory or relief after danger, but the simple, profound peace of a circle finally closing where it needed to close.

"Okay," she replied, placing another piece of bark and another pen in front of Vân Nhi. "But remember, both of you—drawing spells is not a game. If one day you draw to save someone, then save them well; don't draw half-heartedly and leave them to be tormented for the rest of their lives. That's the most important thing your great-grandmother ever taught me, and now I'm passing it on to you."

*

The two children nodded, not fully understanding the profound meaning of that sentence, but still bent down, diligently working on their first drawings, clumsy but sincere lines, under the morning sunlight that was gradually spreading throughout Tùng Lĩnh Village.

Occasionally, Choi tilted his head to look at Vân Nhi's drawing, smiling slightly when he saw her drawing completely to one side, while Vân Nhi pouted, covering her hand on the paper, demanding to start over, causing the whole corner of the porch to fill with clear childish laughter, blending with the sound of morning birds chirping on the tiled roof.

*

From afar, Thanh Việt stood leaning against the paper workshop door frame, quietly observing the scene without making a sound to break the moment, a warm smile appeared on his lips. He had heard Diệp Sương talk about this morning countless times during late night conversations, but seeing it happen with his own eyes still brought a different emotion.

Diệp Sương looked back, met his eyes, smiled slightly, then turned back to the two children, suddenly remembering a detail Mrs. Chín Lài had told her much later, when she was old enough to understand—about a trail of half-burnt coal found on the floor of a ruined house, as if, in the final moments amid the chaos of that violent night, her mother had also tried to draw something, a final word of protection for her. The baby had still been lying in her crib.

She never knew for sure what her mother had drawn, and probably never would. But sitting here, in the middle of the morning, looking at two children struggling with the first ink of their lives, Diệp Sương thought that perhaps it was less important than the fact that the very nature of protection—the desire to heal with one's own hands—had been passed down to her before she was even aware of it, like a seed planted in the ground before it had time to germinate, then blooming throughout a lifetime.

Diệp Sương sat quietly looking at the two children, her hand gently touching the old inkstone that had accompanied her through so many journeys - from the first night of love at the village gate, through the years at Tông Vân Các, through the wandering, through the battle at Khuyết Nguyên Abyss, through the Khuyết Nguyên Abyss deep in the heart of the capital, and now, back to the place where everything began.

*

She looked up at the morning sky, where Vân Tiêu Peak still stood in the distance, white clouds lazily drifting across the mountaintop as they had for hundreds of years—silent, persistent, witnessing how many generations of spellcasters had come and gone, each leaving behind a tiny ink mark in the great flow of time.

The morning wind blew through the porch, carrying the smell of freshly ground ink, bark paper, and faint kitchen ash—the smells that had shaped Diệp Sương's whole life and were now shaping a new beginning for the two children working hard beside her.

Diệp Sương smiled slightly and did not say another word. She simply sat there, quietly watching each trembling brushstroke of the next generation, while her own story—from the first ink stroke on a small piece of tree bark—became part of a much larger story that continued without stopping, new strokes passed from hand to hand forever after.

The sun gradually rose above Vân Tiêu Peak, shining down on the porch of the old paper factory, where two children were still busy with small inkstones and a woman who had once been an orphan girl now sat quietly and completely at home, just as she had always belonged there.